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It's good to be able to brew a quick single cup of coffee with a Keurig but when you know that the small K-Cup is not recyclable or biodegradable, you'll want to change your mind. James Hamblin wrote the article titled, A Brewing Problem, which is about the company Keurig and it's famous K-Cups. When using the K-Cup with a Keurig coffee brewing machine, you could easily get a cup of coffee without having to brew a whole pot of coffee. However when this little cup is used and just sits on this earth, not being recycled or biodegrades into the earth, this can raise some questions. The Keurig company may be working on a way to make K-Cups recyclable and biodegradable but that probably won't happen until 2020, which is the year they said they would be able to release such eco-friendly K-Cups. The founder of Keurig, John Sylvan said that he has made a Keurig cup in the past that was able to be recycled and it worked, yet the current owner of the company has not listened to Sylvan.
I enjoy drinking coffee, but I do not have a Keurig system in my house. Learning how these K-Cups are not able to be recycled, the thought of people using these K-Cups without the knowledge about what they are made of means that these K-Cups are just sitting on this Earth. I find that it's better to not use K-Cups because not only are they just going to pile up, they are polluting our Earth. These K-Cups that are not recyclable or biodegrable can get into the ocean, animals in the ocean and on land would try to eat the plastic which would get stuck in their stomachs and stay the same. Animals could be harmed by these K-Cups. Until Keurig has created more eco-friendly K-Cups, I believe that we should reduce the amount of K-Cups used.
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If you hear people on the news or in general, say that glaciers are growing, and that there is no link between hurricanes and global warming then they are wrong. Science have proven that these statements are myths. First, looking at the glaciers that some have said are supposedly "growing." Although there is a small amount of glaciers actually growing, most glaciers on Earth are receding and has been growing faster as time goes on. The World Glacier Monitoring Service have monitored 288 glaciers from 1946-2005, and during this period of time all the observations of those glaciers showed that most were receding, and only few were growing.
Now thinking about global warming an hurricanes, one can say that there is no link between them. Well, science is here to prove that such a statement is wrong. Evidence shows that warming helps in increasing hurricane intensity. Strong hurricanes seem to get stronger due to the ocean waters getting warmer. When thinking about poaching animals, there must be a reason for people to poach certain animals. For elephants, they are poached just for their ivory tusks. Ivory is used in creating some artistic carvings and other things as well. In the article that I read, it states that "Namibia and Zimbabwe have both proposed bringing back the ivory trade based on the latter argument, and along with South Africa, the three want the international community to set up a process for a future trade in ivory." If the trade of ivory is brought back then one could think that the elephants are no longer safe and the species would soon go extinct. Due to a demand of ivory in Asia, the poaching of elephants just for their ivory tusks will continue.
The Kenya government are working in order to stop such poaching and at least try to reduce the amount of elephants killed by poachers. It is a difficult battle for the government to stop poachers. Although some people make money just to put food on the table for their family, I find that they should at least be aware and have knowledge about the impact that poaching will have on the environment. If the elephant species went extinct then it will impact not just the animals but the environment that the species of elephants lived in. A battle against poaching elephants, or animals in general will take time, and effort. If the citizens and the government come together then maybe a resolution could be made, where animals won't possibly go extinct due to poachers just trying to make a living. With warmer ocean temperatures, storms such as hurricanes and typhoons are able to continue longer which means that those storms either stay in the ocean until they die off or they reach land. The warming of the oceans could be due to the climate change or global warming, although it is uncertain whether it is the climate change that causes the temperatures in the ocean to rise. The intensity of typhoons have increased since the 1970's and will possibly have a 14 percent increase in the intensity by the end of the century as stated in the article.
When thinking about landfalling typhoons with great intensity there is a chance of those tropical storms creating destruction to cities and ecosystems. Typhoons that are category 4 or 5 storms could create some problems for people in cities if such a storm hits land. Houses could be ruined, meaning that the government would need to use money in order to pay for new houses and buildings to be built. More research needs to be done in order to figure out why the sea water temperature is rising. With the information from research, we can see if it's due to humans that the temperature of the ocean waters are rising or it is due to some natural climate change. There could be a link between climate change but until more research is done, it is uncertain. When one hears that the Earth is heating up, what would be their response? Everyone has different opinions on the subject of the heat on our planet is rising. According to Nasa, the Earth will heat at a rate that is up 20 times faster than the historical average. Now some may ask questions like, why does this matter? Well, the increase in heat is caused by the greenhouse effect. The lingering carbon in the atmosphere traps in heat, like a greenhouse would for plants. Us, humans, give off carbon emissions through cars that we drive and factories that create the products we use today.
To lessen the effects, there are ways in which we could lower our carbon emissions. Although it is hard since we use fossil fuels that release carbon when burned. However, the less forests we cut down the cleaner the air we could have since plants take in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Not only will changes in our daily lives will affect us, it will be hard to have people make those changes. Which is why it should start with this generations teens and children. Teaching kids about the environment and the impact we have on it will, not only, make them think about the world but could push them towards making changes in order to fix such climate change. There is an algae that is threatening the marine life with the toxins it creates. Back in 2015, the algae bloom covered the West Coast which was the most toxic that was ever recorded in that region. As scientists take a look at the algae blooms they see that the blooms last longer in warmer waters and they even become more toxic as the water temperatures get warmer. The warmer the water means the better the conditions are for these algae blooms to grow and spread. Earlier this year, these toxic algae blooms killed millions of salmon in South America. When looking at the numbers of dead salmon, enough were killed to approximately fill 14 Olympic swimming pools. Just looking at these numbers makes one think that we have to find a way to get rid of these algae blooms. The toxins can kill both sea life and birds that may eat such blooms. The warmer waters means that the Earth is heating up, therefore we have to take action and stop such climate change. Scientists are watching such changes that occur in the ocean, but there needs to be changes that we must make ourselves.
I believe that this is of most importance because just think how much sea life could be lost due to these toxic algae blooms. With the Earth heating up so is the ocean waters, creating the perfect environment for these algae blooms. This makes me think back to global warming. With emissions from cars and airplanes, the carbon dioxide just goes into the air and creates the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide traps in the heat more and more as we continue to pollute the air with so much carbon dioxide. The change starts with us, inhabitants of the Earth. The ocean ecosystems and food chain will have a drastic change if we do not find ways to not only stop the Earth from heating up, but stopping these toxic algae blooms is what should also be done to keep our ocean ecosystem stable. |
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